A New Addition to the Family: Portugal

The Name of the Wind just came out in Portugal. They tell me that at the beginning of the month it was actually #7 on the bestseller lists over there. Which, I will admit, gives me a little bit of a tingle….

I haven’t actually held one in my hands yet, but the cover looks pretty cool:

I always like seeing new covers for the book. Especially when the art has obviously been commissioned especially for the book.

Though I’ve only recently become a father, I’ve compared writing a book to having a baby for years. My mom used to refer to it as “her grandbook.” And one of my friends used to ask about it in those terms. We wouldn’t see each other for months, and when we got together and caught up on the news, she’d eventually ask, “And how’s the baby doing…?”

Now that I’ve been a dad for a couple of weeks, I realize that the baby analogy is better than I thought. Before I was mostly referring to the emotional connection you feel to your own book. But now, having dealt with a newborn, I realize that writing a book is not entirely dissimilar to actually raising a child.

And then, at the end of the day, you look at it and realize that it’s pretty useless.

Don’t get me wrong, you love it. You love it like nobody’s business. But unless you’re an idiot, you realize this thing really isn’t good for anything yet. You’re going to have months and months of thankless, repetitive work before it’s capable of going out into the world on its own.

Later, when your book is published, it’s very cool and very scary. That’s when your baby has grown up enough to leave the nest. It’s out there, meeting people all on its own. If you’ve raised it properly, it hopefully makes a good impression. Hopefully it makes friends.

But the foreign editions of the book are… different. It’s still my baby, but it’s not *really* my baby. It’s like someone has cloned my baby and dressed it up in lederhosen and made it smoke a pipe for marketing reasons.

Yeah. The analogy really starts to fall apart after a while, I guess.

What was my point? No point. I don’t always have to have a point, you know….

Wait! I guess I do have a point. It’s that sometimes they make your baby smoke a pipe and you have to shrug it off. You don’t know what sells books in Bangladesh, or Berlin, or Brigadoon. For the most part, you have to trust that the publisher knows what they’re doing. For all you know, those Doonies are loonies for pipes…

But it’s nice when you see the marketing and it appeals to your aesthetic. Like the trailer I posted before. Or this picture that I stumbled onto when I was googling up an image of the cover for this blog.

(Click to Embiggen)

I’m guessing this is a promotional poster. If it is, I wish I had a copy. I like the tagline across the top. “Kvothe: Magician, Musician, Thief, Assassin and… Hero.”

Hell, if I’d have been able to come up with promo copy like that on my own, it wouldn’t have taken me five years to sell the thing.

Hey Pat, I really think you deserve to have a copy of the promo thing. It’s awesome and you’re the author, after all, aren’t you?? Yeah, definitely: they should ship one to you as a gift. I’d do that :)

That promo poster is pretty damn cool. Also, my geek senses are tingling for multiple reasons right now.1. NotW coolness2. The fact that I could actually pretty much figure out what that cover says without being told even though I’ve only studied Spanish, not Portuguese. (Linguistics major geekiness right there.)3. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference? Always a good choice.

Hehe, the Lederhosen comment made me laugh. I can assure you that the German edition doesn’t wear Lederhosen (although it’s pink). I like the cover of the US one I bought better, though. As to what sells books in Berlin? I can’t tell you, because I usually buy the ones not by German authors in English. Why? Because the translations usually suck – in my opinion.

Anyway, may I tell you that “The Name of the Wind” is probably the best and most fascinating book I’ve read in years, even surpassing LotR (oh oh, I’m in trouble now for having said that…)?

I think as time goes on you will find more and more ways that analogy is apt. Such as, when your book gets to be a teenager and insists on smoking a pipe even though you tell it over and over again not to. And when it gets stubborn and crabby and just wants to play XBox all day long. And you despair of it EVER being useful and though you never thought you’d see this day come, you actually wish it would go live on its own for awhile and see what the Real World is like so it will appreciate being back at home.

Hi. I´m from portugal and i can assure you we let you keep your original neme here… We don´t change the author name for our books. I liked your book a lot, although i read it on english, can´t really say how´s the translation… Keep up the good work.

Umm, is it against the rules to ask really really nicely about Wise Man’s Fear? Maybe just a quick blog with a teeny tiny update? Maybe we could track it, like UPS: Author 2:17, Editor Oct. 7, 5:19, Scheduled for pickup: ?. I’m sure you could come up with a much more clever analogy, but I just wanted to very quietly and respectfully with my tail between my legs ask if maybe please you wouldn’t mind just an itty bitty update. If I’m out of line, just hit delete and you’ll never hear from me again…

very, very cool tagline. And also, just as i am a massive (well actually i’m quite small but you see my point) fan of ‘the name of the wind’ i am massively curious as to what the name of the child is… Do we get to find out? (I am a girl. I therefore have a genetic predisposition to crave such facts… and more cute photos)

Excellent analogy, Pat. Also, and I’ve commented about this before, why aren’t there more hard-core promotional efforts in the US? Like the awesome posters and the full-blown studio-produced trailers? I would wallpaper my house in promo posters of books, especially if I could find some Name of the Wind posters. But they’d have to be honest and genuine. Not that Hollywood sellout crap pandering to teenage girls – Pirates of the Caribbean, I’m looking in your direction.

My name is Rita and I’m from Portugal! I’m now with you’re book in my hands, and I’m still in the begining of the first chapter, but I’m really courious about you’re book, seems like the kind of book that I will read withouth stop. Hope you have lot of sucsess and I will send you a coment when I finish it. In you’re biography says that you really love show you’re charaters to people, and I understand that, because I really love to write too, I already have 6 book not published some of fanfiction and also some of them with my own charaters so I really understand what you feel. Well its all for now! have a great day! love from Portugal!

Wbpraw, no you aren’t supposed to pry about Book #2. Just like you aren’t supposed to butt into someone’s pregnancy mid-incubation. Unless you are the midwife or grandma or something. When it goes into labor, we’ll all be notified so we can contact Amazon.

I recommend doing something useful, like re-reading Name of The Wind, so that you can be refreshed on all the various plot lines and characters and such. The baby will make its appearance when it’s darn good and ready.

The Portugese cover is magnificant! As is the promotional poster.Your analogy about a writing a book being like having a baby seems pretty spot on. I am currently trying to write a trilogy, so I understand the painstaking effort that must be put into it. Well, good luck with parenthood. May fortune smile upon you.

Seems strang you only reply to certain people whom post on your blog. Oh well.

You describe fatherhood perfectly… my wife gets mad at me for reading and stuff and not “playing with the baby”. The kid is 2 months old what does she expect me to do with it? Have races to see who can fill a diaper the fastest? Play who falls asleep first?

Hi, Patrick!! I’m the portuguese guy that managed to do the cover and all the inside pages of the promo booklet. Though it’s not a poster. Just want to say I appreciate all the compliments to my work. If it wasn’t for the great imaginary in the book I wouldn’t got it that way. I do covers too so, I worked on the promo in the way I would do a normal cover. Concept is Important…

Desert Rat:Lol- only here where I don’t want to offend my new favorite author. I almost pointed out to you that we did in fact get regualar updates throughout the pregnancy (the size of Oot, etc.), but alas, I will remain tractable and go read Name of the Wind for the fourth time. And I will do it willingly and without malice.

The poster is great. I only had to grin about the lute they used for the picture. It’s a theorbo, which means that the neck is almost 2 meters long. Lovely walk to Imre that would have been… I’m a lutenist myself and one of the things I really adore about your book is the practical new “trouper’s lute” you gave Kvothe. easy to carry, six strings instead of the dreadful fourteen we have to cope with on the baroque instruments. I think about Kvothe now whenever my instruments give me trouble.(But I still won’t by a guitar…)

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